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Oxford and Endimion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Josephine Waters Bennett
Josephine Waters Bennett*
Affiliation:
Evanston, Illinois
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Extract

It is curious, in view of the strange fascination which the seventeenth Earl of Oxford has exercised on a whole school of modern critics, that perhaps the most crucial episode in his life has been glossed over or ignored completely. Yet this episode, however discreditable to the Earl, is of some literary interest.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1942 , pp. 354 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1942

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References

Note 1 in page 354 Quoted in E. K. Chambers, Sir Henry Lee (Oxford, 1936), p. 154.

Note 2 in page 354 For a rational discussion of his character see A. Feuillerat, John Lyly (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 78–81. The documentation in B. M. Ward's The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (London, 1928), is useful also.

Note 3 in page 354 Sir Fulke Greville, Life of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Nowell Smith (Oxford, 1907), p. 63.

Note 4 in page 354 Ward, p. 208, from the report of the French ambassador.

Note 5 in page 355 Probably the famous tennis-court quarrel with Sir Philip Sidney, and a quarrel with some gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

Note 6 in page 355 B. M. Ward, pp. 207–208, translating the report of Mauvissière de Castelnau, the French Ambassador. The text of the report is printed in J. H. Pollen and W. MacMahon, The Ven. Philip Howard Earl of Arundel, 1557–95, in Publications of the Catholic Record Society, xxi (1919), 29. The dispatch is dated 11 Jan., 1581 (n.s.). See also pp. 30–31.

Note 7 in page 355 The Fugger News-Letters, 2d Series (1568–1605), ed. Victor von Klarwill, trans. L. S. R. Byrne (London, 1926), p. 55.

Note 8 in page 355 Calendar of Hatfield MSS, xiii, p. 199.

Note 9 in page 355 Quoted from Chambers, Lee, pp. 155–156.

Note 10 in page 356 These Knyvets were grandchildren of Muriel Howard, daughter of Sir Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The genealogy of the Knyvets is discussed in Chambers, Lee, pp. 150 ff.; Wiltshire Notes and Queries, viii (1916), 448–454; The Topographer and Genealogist, i, (1846), 469–473; Walter Rye, Norfolk Families (Norwich, 1913), p. 451; and for correction of the D.N.B. see the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xii, 11. There were also links between the Knyvets and the Howards through the Rich and Dacres families. In 1583 Lord Henry Howard's nephew, Thomas, second son of the late Duke of Norfolk, married Katherine, eldest daughter of Sir Henry Knyvet the younger. Lord Howard had assumed responsibility for his brother's children after the Duke's execution, and so was probably responsible for this match.

Note 11 in page 356 He mentioned a “cousin Vavasour,” by whom Chambers thinks that Anne was meant; see Lee, p. 155. But a William Vavasour was among Oxford's intimates before the Christmas debacle; see Ward, p. 128. A William Vavasour who describes himself as a brother of Thomas (Anne had a brother Thomas) is mentioned in the Cal. of State Papers Dom. 1581–1590, p. 145, but see p. 207. There is a letter from Arundel to an unnamed lady, mentioning her disgrace and banishment, and thanking her for delivering him from “almost as great agonie as your self endured,” which Chambers thinks is addressed to Anne. Arundel was a close friend of Lord Paget with whom he fled to Paris in 1583.

Note 12 in page 356 Extant accounts of Oxford's charges name only Lord Howard, Charles Arundel, and Francis Southwell “and others,” but neither of the latter two were knights. Sir Henry Knyvet was knighted in 1574, and Sir Thomas in 1578.

Note 13 in page 356 Fugger News-Letters, p. 55. This letter is dated April 29, 1581, and effectively disposes of Ward's contention that Oxford's confinement was limited to one night. He examined the list of prisoners for whom food was supplied by the Lieutenant of the Tower and failed to find Oxford's name among them, but noblemen frequently took their servants with them and supplied their own tables during their imprisonment.

Note 14 in page 357 Acts of the Privy Council, ed. J. R. Dasent (London, 1896), N.S. xiii, 74.

Note 15 in page 357 Cal. of State Papers Dom. 1581–1590, pp. 22, 23, letters from Walsingham to Burghley dated July 12 and 14. Oxford had refused to live with Anne Cecil since 1576 when he returned from abroad and disowned the child which she had borne in his absence, on the fantastic grounds that he had not cohabited with her twelve months before the child was born, but only at Hampton Court, nine months before the birth; see Ward, pp. 115, 117.

Note 16 in page 357 Cal. of State Papers Dom. 1581–1590, pp. 38, 70. In 1583 Lord Howard published A Defensative against the poyson of supposed Prophecies, in which he describes the type of prophetic writing and mentions the particular book which figures in these charges. He is careful to state that he is describing it from the report of others, and that he has never seen it; see pp. 116v and 120–20v of the reprint of 1620.

Note 17 in page 357 The charges and counter-charges are preserved in the State Papers, but the Calendar (1581–90), gives only the briefest summary, pp. 1, 32, 38–40, 70, 97, and Addenda 1581–1625, pp. 48–9, 84–5. Many excerpts are scattered through Ward, pp. 99–100, 128–129, 206–234. A summary of Lord Howard's part of it is in G. F. Nott's “Memoirs of the Life of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton,” in The Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (London, 1815), i, 434.

Note 18 in page 357 She had reason to distrust him, since he had plotted to rescue the Duke of Norfolk from the Tower in 1571/2. The plot was not discovered at the time, but in 1574 it came to the knowledge of the Privy Council, and Oxford fled to the Low Countries. It was feared that he would join his uncle, the exiled Earl of Westmorland, but Burghley managed to smooth over the affair and persuade him to return; see Ward, pp. 66–69, 92–98; and Cal. of State Papers Dom., 1547–80, pp. 478, 484, 485.

Note 19 in page 357 Ibid.

Note 20 in page 357 Edward Edwards, The Life and Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh (London, 1868), ii, 21.

Note 21 in page 358 Nicholas Faunt to Anthony Bacon, quoted from Chambers, pp. 156–157. That the quarrel was over Anne Vavasour is evident from another report of the duel; see p. 156. Only six weeks before this duel took place, Jan. 21, 1581/2, Sir Thomas Knyvet was appointed Keeper of the Palace of Whitehall; see Ward, p. 227 n.

Note 22 in page 358 Different episodes in this feud are described by Chambers, pp. 156–157; Calendar of State Papers Dom. 1581–90, p. 58; Feuillerat, Lyly, pp. 126–128; and see Sir Harris Nicolas, Memoirs of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton (London, 1847), pp. 321–324. There were two fights in June, 1582, and one in July, and one the following March.

Note 23 in page 358 The challenge is printed by Chambers, p. 158. The fact that it was preserved among the Burghley papers suggests that it was turned over to the authorities and the duel forbidden.

Note 24 in page 358 E. M. Tenison, Elizabethan England (Royal Leamington Spa, 1933–40) IV, 289. Elizabeth was born 1 July, 1564, and married Thomas Wentworth, son and heir of Thomas, Lord Wentworth, in 1581. Her husband died 7 Nov., 1582, and she died childless in April, 1583.

Note 25 in page 358 Hist. MSS. Comm. Report xii, App. iv, Rutland MSS., i, 149–151.

Note 26 in page 358 Lord Howard was imprisoned in the Fleet, and was later in custody in the country. He was not readmitted to court until 1600; see Nott, p. 435 ff. Charles Arundel fled with Lord Paget to Paris and thereby seemed to confess his treason.

Note 27 in page 358 I cannot find that Thomas and Henry Knyvet were suspected, or that Lady Paget suffered from the flight of her husband, but the group was weakened numerically in spite of the fact that Anne's brother, Thomas Vavasour, came to court in 1584 and entered the service of the Earl of Leicester. Anne's sister became a Maid of Honour about 1590; Chambers, p. 161.

Note 28 in page 359 See the quotation in Ward, p. 228.

Note 29 in page 359 R. W. Bond, The Complete Works of John Lyly (Oxford, 1902), i, 27–29, prints the letter but does not understand Oxford's troubles; see the letters in Feuillerat, pp. 533–534, 529–531.

Note 30 in page 359 Feuillerat's Lyly, pp. 104–106, gathers up some of this material; Chambers' Lee, pp. 84–90, discusses the topical import of the Woodstock entertainment of 1575 and notes it in the entertainment of 1592 (p. 150) and in Lee's retirement ceremonies (pp. 135–144). See also Appendices D and E. Essex presented a discussion of the state of his mind to the Queen in this form in 1595 (see Nichols, iii, 371), and we get a glimpse of the low state of popular interpretation in the report of it to Robert Sidney; Arthur Collins, Sidney Papers, i, 362. Lord Burghley also resorted to this kind of symbolism, and so did Sir Christopher Hatton; see Feuillerat's notes in Lyly, pp. 104–106.

Note 31 in page 360 An insufficient knowledge of the chronology involved allowed J. P. Collier and Hazlitt to suggest that Endymion represents Lyly; see Feuillerat, p. 143 n. N. J. Halpin, “Oberon's Vision in the Midsummer-Night's Dream, Illustrated by a Comparison with Lylie's Endymion,” Shakespeare Society Publications (1843), Part ii, pp. 47 ff., suggested that Endymion and Tellus represent Leicester and Lady Sheffield. G. P. Baker, in his edition of the play (New York, 1894), pp. 1 ff., argues for Leicester and Lady Essex. R. W. Bond, in his edition of the Works, i, 46 ff. argues for Leicester and Mary Queen of Scots. But W. W. Greg, in his review, MLQ, vi (1903), 22, rejects this argument. Feuillerat, pp. 143 ff. accepts Mary Queen of Scots as Tellus but would have Endymion her son James. P. W. Long, “Lyly's Endimion: an Addendum,” Modern Philology, vii (1911), 599–605, points out the many improbabilities in this identification.

Note 32 in page 360 Hazelton Spencer, Elizabethan Plays (Boston, 1933), p. 144. Quotations are from this text.

Note 33 in page 360 “The Purport of Lyly's Endimion,” PMLA, xxiv (1909), 164–184.

Note 34 in page 360 Henry Morley, English Writers (London, 1892), ix, 208, asserts that the play is an impersonal allegory touching “the relation of the mind of man to Earth and Heaven.” But, as Long points out, Cynthia does not represent Heaven; “Purport,” p. 177.

Note 35 in page 361 Zabeta is alluded to in Peele's Arraignment of Paris (1584), and Gaudina in the Woodstock entertainment of 1592.

Note 36 in page 361 See E. C. Wilson, England's Eliza (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), pp. 245 ff., 297–320.

Note 37 in page 361 “Purport,” p. 173.

Note 38 in page 361 “Addendum,” p. 603.

Note 39 in page 361 See quotations in Ward, pp. 103, 110, 121, and 126 'for always I have, and I will still, prefer mine own content before others.“

Note 40 in page 361 Printed by Chambers, pp. 151–154.

Note 41 in page 362 Halpin makes the suggestion in connection with Lady Sheffield's child by Leicester. See John Donne, “Elegy on the L.C.,” “His children are his pictures.” The Complete Poems of John Donne, ed. R. E. Bennett (Chicago, 1942), p. 229.

Note 42 in page 363 Ward makes much of the unique character of this pension, and it seems to be the largest she ever granted without duties attached to it, but the Earl was definitely unemployable.

Note 43 in page 363 J.E.N., in a review of Ward, in E.E.R., xliv (1929), 337–338, says, “It is enough to assume that the pension was provision for a bankrupt earl so that he might—as the patent phrases it—‘be in some manner relieved’.” In 1590, Oxford's settlement with the Court of Wards showed that he owed the Queen 11,000 pounds; Strype, Annals, (Oxford, 1824), Vol. iii, Pt. II, 191. For Burghley's aid see Calendar of Stale Papers, Dom. (1581–90) pp. 335, 409–410.

Note 44 in page 363 Both Feuillerat and Bond argue for 1585/6 because that date suits their interpretation of the personal allegory, but the extant records of court performances do not support them. Between 1580 and 1591 the Queen kept Christmas, through Candlemas at Greenwich only between 1584/5 and 1587/8; E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (Oxford, 1923), iv, “Court Calendar;” Mary S. Steele, Plays and Masques at Court During the Reigns of Elizabeth, etc. (New Haven, 1926), pp. 91–97. The records of the first of these four years are fairly adequate and make it improbable that Endimion was acted in 1584/5. For the next two years the records of plays and dates are missing from the Revels Office accounts, published by A. Feuillerat, Documents relating to the Office of the Revels (Louvain, 1908), Band xxi of Materialien zur Kunde des älteren Englischen Dramas, ed. W. Bang, pp. 360–375. The Acts of the Privy Council are also missing for 1582–86 O.S., and there is only one record of payment to players (Queen's) for 1585/6 and none for 1586/7. These gaps leave only the records of payments by the treasurer of the Chamber in the Pipe Roll, which records payments to Paul's boys in 1586/7 but not on Candlemas. The only Candlemas payment to them is that of 1587/8; see E. K. Chambers, “Court Performances before Queen Elizabeth,” MLR, ii (1906), 9.

Note 45 in page 364 Perhaps the death of Lady Oxford, in the summer of 1588, which severed the tie between Oxford and Lord Burghley, made Lyly's place untenable. He was made Esquire of the Body to the Queen in 1588, and thereafter importuned her for appointment in the Revels Office for many years; Feuillerat, pp. 552–563.

Note 46 in page 364 Lee, p. 160.

Note 47 in page 364 Lee married in 1554, but in 1575 he was openly protesting his devotion to one of the court ladies. In 1584 his wife seems to have been living with her mother; Chambers, p. 77. All of his children were either dead or alienated by that time, for he made a recovery on his estates, destroying the entail. His wife was buried in 1590 (Chambers, pp. 76–79), and he was living openly with Anne in that year, if not earlier.

Note 48 in page 364 Chambers, pp. 106–107, 110. He was appointed in 1580.

Note 49 in page 365 William Stebbing, Sir Walter Ralegh (Oxford, 1891), p. 94.

Note 50 in page 365 In Leicester's Commonwealth (1584) it is charged that Leicester offered her 100 pounds a year and jewels if she would become his mistress “shee being but the leavings of another man before him;” Chambers; p. 160; Leycester's Common-wealth (1641), p.32. There is some reason to think that Charles Arundel was the author of this libel; see Ward, p. 221; Pollen, The Ven. Philip Howard, p. 58. Whether or not the charge was true, it is probable that Anne was befriended by Oxford's enemies, the Leicester faction. Lee was an old friend of Leicester's, and Anne's brother entered Leicester's service about 1585.

Note 51 in page 365 He was made Yeoman of the Armoury in 1607/8; see Chambers, p. 222. If he was of age at that time, he must have been born by 1586 at the latest.

Note 52 in page 365 Chambers, p. 150.

Note 53 in page 365 The best text is that in Chambers, Lee, pp. 277–297. Bond, Lyly, i, 404 ff. attempts to claim the authorship of the entertainment for Lyly, but see Chambers, pp. 145 ff., and W. W. Greg's review of Bond, already cited.

Note 54 in page 366 Chambers, pp. 40–41.

Note 55 in page 366 The rank of “Captain” was a much higher one in hose times than it is now, and corresponded more nearly to the general officer or “colonel” of modern terminology. Sir William Segar, Honor, Military and Civill (1602), p. 44, heads a chapter, “Of Captaines generall, Marshals, and other chiefe Commanders.”

Note 56 in page 367 The two were probably acquainted. Lee kept town lodgings at the Savoy, where Lyly lived from about 1578–79 until his marriage in 1583; Feuillerat, pp. 41 ff., 132 ff.

Note 57 in page 367 It has been asserted that Corsites marries Tellus, but Cynthia merely says to Corsites, “Well, enjoy thy love” (v, iii, 355). The Queen must have given some such sanction to the amour, since she forgave Lee, although he continued to live openly with Anne. Sometime between 1581 and 590 she was married to a John Finch whom Lee pensioned. But there is no reason to suppose that she ever lived with Finch. She so far forgot his existence that after Lee's death she married again and was heavily fined for having two husbands living. She managed to retain sufficient social position, however, to play hostess to Queen Anne, in the next reign.

Note 58 in page 368 See for example, the account of the pictures at Woodstock; Chambers, Lee, pp. 87–89; and Lady Ralegh's letter to Sir Robert Cecil, Edwards, Ralegh, ii, 397.

Note 59 in page 369 C. F. Tucker Brooke, “The Allegory in Lyly's Endimion,” Modern Language Notes, xxvi (1911), 12–15, points out some further considerations: that Lyly's main object was flattery of the Queen, that the allegory must be personal and sentimental rather than diplomatic, that Lyly's allegories deal only with faits accomplis, never with advice to the Queen, and that the allegory probably extends only to a few of the main characters. With these requirements also the theory that the play is an apology for Oxford is in full accord.

Note 60 in page 369 As late as the summer of 1588 he was still seeking preferment at court; see Ward, pp. 286–292.